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OF BOTH WORLDS 



POEMS 



HERMAN SCHEFFAUER 



A. M. ROBERTSON 

SAN FRANCISCO 
1903 



THE LIBRARY OK 
CONGRESS. 

Two Copies Received 

AUG 11 1903 

% Copyright Entry 
CLASS ^ OL XXcNc. 
COPY B. 



Copyright, 

M. ROBERTSON. 

1903. 



75 3^31 



Ji. 



San Francisco: 

C A. MuRDOCK & Co , Printers, 

1903. 



DEDICATED 

TO 

MY GOOD FRIEND 

AMB'ROSE BIERCE 



Kind was Your Praise and True, — unto My Heart 
A Breeze that Spoke its Embers into Flame; 

Howe'er it Burns for Nature and for Art, 
Let Friendship's Hallowed Coals their Incense Claim. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

the song of the slaughtered i 

back, back to nature 5 

the republic 7 

lyre of the latter days 10 

disarmament 12 

the sleepers i4 

the unknown i5 

chosen of all 16 

sea change i7 

de profundis i9 

murad ali unto dalja 22 

earthlight 26 

shagalon of the pole 29 

banners of shasta 33 

the valley of yosemite 35 

hurkalem the hunter 2>j 

pickett's charge 40 

crucifixion 44 

the night-bells of noel 46 

the head and hand of murietta 50 

poesy banished 53 

the happy hours 55 

the skippers 57 

the earth-voices 61 

the interim 64 

yosemite 65 

savior of the sequoias 66 

out of charybdis 68 

SEMPER 70 

MARTINIQUE 7I 

THE DEPARTED ONE 72 

PHANTASMAGORIA "J-i) 

TO DR. C. \V. DOYLE 74 

ADIEU, ADIEU ! 75 



PAGE 

EPILOGUE EVERLASTING 78 

LOVE RESURGENT 80 

LILITH OF ELD 81 

MAIDEN OF MADNESS 83 

COMPLAINT 85 

PAST AND PRESENT 86 

THE W^ORM 87 

MISERERE 88 

THE ANGEL IN EXILE 89 

THE QUEST ETERNAL 90 

IN MEMORY OF DR. C. W^. DOYLE 93 

MISANTHROPOS IN EXTREMIS 95 

THE WORLD-SOUL 97 

THE DANCE OF THE DEAD 99 

SONG FROM " FAUST " I02 

GENIUS, LOVE AND HATE IO4 

THE harper's SONG IO5 

THE SECOND THOUGHT 106 

REVELATION IO7 

BELLOMANIACS IO9 

RUDYARD KIPLING 1 10 

THE SNOB Ill 

TO A SHAMELESS BARD 1 13 

MADE IN AMERICA 1 14 

" IL DECHIRE LES PAPERASSES " 1 16 

LINES ON A DEAD DOG 117 

ELECTION TIME 1 18 

MANIKIN AND MAIDKIN 119 

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF " PUNCH " !2I 

ST. Patrick's day, 1900 124 

latrona street 127 

Poems in the Spirit of Poe. 

FOE 131 

1. THE SEA OF SERENITY 133 

2. INTROSPECTION 137 

3. THE ISLE OF THE DEAD I40 

4. PACIFIC 143 



OF BOTH WORLDS 



THE SONG OF THE SLAUGHTERED. 



THE SONG OF THE SLAUGHTERED. 



Three were the terrible things that spoke and the three 

were sore in sin, 
One from the sea and two from its shore (and their 

skulls were caven in) ; 
And the eldest of all his voice brake over the rough 

world's rim — 
Over the world's rough rind and rim, my heart, my 

heart went forth to him : 



THE SONG OF THE SLAUGHTERED. 



" Once was I father of four — good man of a goodlier 

wife; 
A ball in the brain makes all in vain — hope, happiness, 

and life ! 
Now, on the hearth of Hell I hear, and the hearing is 

half Hell's pain ; 
' He died for his country, a hero — he sleeps with the 

nobly slain ! ' 
O ! vain is that lie as a solace commanders and con- 

querers tell, — 
Hell is my country, ye patriots, and no heroes have 

honor in Hell. 
But on Earth the blood of the slaughtered the crimes 

of the State atones, — 
Lost, lost to me — as I to you — my Mary, my little 

ones ! " 

The red hands must be dead hands, the red face 

must be gray, 
Yesterday all red with life, white with death to-day. 
What is a soldier's life? 
No more than a soldier's wife ! 
For his red hands soon are dead hands, his red face 
soon is gray. 



THE SONG OF THE SLAUGHTERED. 



II. 

" And I was the only son of two grayheads left behind, 
I, whose naked ribs make a moaning in the wind. 
Deep sank the sword of the foeman and the cords of 

my heart laid bare, 
But my parents' wound no steel can sound — misery, 

woe and despair! 
I gat me to the battle with many — and many did die. 
Whiles they who scribble with pens saw no wound and 

heard no cry. 
Where the sword or the shot slays one, the pen slays 

ninety-and-nine — 
In the sight of men I was slain by the pen — father and 

mother mine ! " 

The red hands shall be dead hands, the red face 

shall be gray. 
Yesterday all red with life, white with death to-day. 
And you with the only son. 
Where is that only one ? 
Say his red hands now are dead hands, his red face 
now is gray. 



4 THE SONG OF THE SLAUGHTERED. 

III. 

" Much have ye lost, ye comrades, yet I have lost 

more than all — 
The beloved whereof I was well beloved — wormwood 

and ashes and gall ! 
Ye have lost what ye once possessed, and your memory 

slakes your pain. 
But I have lost what I never possessed — O, surely 

't was mine to gain ! 
And let her wait and let her weep — she weeps not, she 

waits not alone ; 
On the enemy's side I made many a bride who shall 

no bridegroom own. 
Ye makers of war and your masters, take the curse 

re-arisen in me ! 
Take the curse from the lips of my loved one, and the 

curse of the millions to be ! " 

The red hands must be dead hands, the red face 

must be gray, 
Yesterday all red with life, white with death to-day. 
You on whom sorrow doth fall. 
Judge three and be judges of all, 
For the red hands must be dead hands, the red face 

must be gray." 
1900. 



BACK, BACK TO NATURE. 



BACK, BACK TO NATURE. 

Weary ! I am weary of the madness of the town, 
Deathly weary of all women and all wine, 

Back, back to Nature ! — I will go and lay me down. 
Bleeding lay me down before her shrine. 

For the mother-breast the hungry babe must call, 
Loudly to the shore cries the surf upon the sea ; — 

Hear, Nature wide and deep ! after man's mad festival 
How bitterly my soul cries out for thee ! 

Once again would I embrace ye, Titan trees. 

Once again these thirsting lips would kiss your sod. 

Wet with tears so deeply-drawn, leaping tears that 
freedom frees, — 
The sacrificial flowers heart-blooming up to God. 

Hidden in the grasses of the darkest vales I '11 lie. 
Silently the happiness of Earth my heart shall fill; 

Blue eyes, are ye kindred to the blue, eternal sky 
That looms above yon Earth-contemning hill? 



BACK, BACK TO NATURE. 



Though the child be blinded by the world-dust, he 
shall know 
His mother — well that mother knows her child! 
Him impulse star-compelling bids with panting breath 
to go 
To thee, great heart of Nature undefiled. 

In that heart that holds the stars harmonious, O Soul 
Go bathe — where worlcis oh Ittster-worlds in awful 
orbits blaze, 

Until the spirit's compass encompasses the Whole 
Of God and of God the wondrous ways. 



THE REPUBLIC. 



THE REPUBLIC. 

[Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.] 
I. 

Years upon years have we labored, lustily, lovingly, 

long; 
Our arms were girt, and our thighs were girt, and our 

arms and thighs were strong. 
We builded a beautiful Tower high o'er the world's 

dreadful plain; 
Its base was as deep as the roots of our faith, and those 

were as deep as the main. 
But whether the Tower be Babel made red by the set 

of our sun. 
By fire from Hell or light from Heaven — what word, 

O Washington? 

II. 

We shall knock at thy tomb in the darkness ; a thunder 

of tongues shall call 
Thee forth to answer or to ask — even thou who art 

first in all. 
The earthquakes lie curled under foot, and the red 

clouds in vengeance see 



8 THE REPUBLIC. 



Marshalled above us and over the bell whose tongue 
spake " Liberty ! " 

Nothing but " Liberty, Liberty ! " — ere sold into Mam- 
mon's hands 

To groan the knell of Freedom to peoples of alien 
lands. 

IIL 

Lost in a labyrinth madness — in a wilderness lost! 

in vain, 
Our sons, led wrong by lies of the Priests of Mammon, 

seek light again, — 
And is our land great by its mileage, or great by the 

hearts of its sons? 
And is our land strong by its people's voice, or only 

by voice of its guns ? 
Well we know where pale Freedom lies bleeding and 

bound to an isle in the East ; 
Well we know where an Eagle sweeps out of the West 

on her poor heart to feast. 

IV. 

Years upon years have we labored, lustily, lovingly, 

long; 
But, Ruin and Chaos our work must eclipse when 

Right is eclipsed by Wrong. 



THE REPUBLIC. 



Where is the prophecy cried by the seer? Where is 

the patriot's prayer? — 
The iron-firm hand to stay the stones? — the voice 

through the night : " Beware ! " 
Nothing is written, nothing is wrought, to warn of, 

to ward off the fall, 
Save the hand of the Father held forth from the tomb 

and the terror of words on the wall ! 



Feb. 22, 1900. 



10 LYRE OF THE LATTER DAYS. 



LYRE OF THE LATTER DAYS. 

Break forth, spirit flame of the Earth, 
Foredoomed to the fate of the moon ; 

Feed fire unto fire in poets' hearts, 
Lest they burn out all too soon ; 

Lest the boon they were given with blessings 
from Heaven 
Be more of a curse than a boon ! 

It is more of a boon than a curse, 

Their powerful labor in song, 
And their temples up-builded of verse 

Are forever-during and strong. 

Go build them a blaze with the hearts 
Of men that may serve them for coal, 

So the poets may brew us a virtue-broth 
To make Humanity whole ; 

So the strings of the lyre may shake forth the fire 
That old Prometheus stole. 

They shall gather men's hearts in their hands, 
Red-litten with wonderful flame; 

They shall weld them and bind them with 
bands 
Of Love made of more than a name. 



LYRE OF THE LATTER DAYS. 



So once more the music may live 

Of Thessalian Orpheus' muse, 
Safe from the hands of its juggHng priests, 

And their art of Art's abuse. 
For Beauty deflowered, their blight overpowered, 

And ground in the mills of mere use. 

When the priests shall go mad in the night 
Of their souls moist with mists of the Earth, 

And shall flee from the vengeance named 
Light— 
Her birth shall be Poesy's birth. 

Like a ruin the epic of Earth 

Lies there out of tune — out of rhyme. 

Where are the masters, the minstrels, the men 
Who wrought with the Fair and Sublime? 

And the Days of the Dreamer! And Beauty's 
Redeemer 
To heal the deep ills of the time ? 

When masters, when minstrels, when men 
Shall toil, will the epic be done. 

And to stars shall Earth be a star, — again 
Shall her face be worthy the sun ! 



DISARMAMENT. 



DISARMAMENT. 
(1898) 

Unto the sinful nations, 
(What finger points at us?) 

The Lord in His All-power, 
Wisdom and Mercy, thus : 

" You nations roused with wrath, 

My stolen bolts restore ! 
Go up into the Path 

Of Peace, and sin no more." 

So as I dreamt, the Tsar dreamt 

Of the Millennium ; 
The Tsar of All the Russias 

Dreamt Peace-no-End had come! 

Hard to my left and right. 

All in a blood-red rust. 
Spiked cannon crumbled merrily. 

Choked mouth and maw with dust. 

The nations' iron navies. 

In shore-sand sunk, and sea. 

Dug their graves or fathoms low 
Lay and lumbered drunkenly. 



DISARMAMENT. 13 



Proofed in steel the corpse of War, 
Mountain-like, spread o'er the land, 

All we won and all we lost 
Writ in red within his hand, 

O, lost in a distant grave, 
(What was the war to me?) 

Friend of my heart, how low you lie 
Beneath a strange, wild tree! 

Yet, fair in this dream which God 
The wise White Tsar did send, 

Spain still held her hell-sprung isles, 
And I — I held my friend. 

" Give back God's stolen thunder — 

His battle-bolts restore! 
Disarm, you glowering nations. 

Disarm, and war no more ! " 

So raved the Tsar at night 
Of Peace and called it good. 

At morn the glowering nations 
Sought one another's blood. 

EPILOGUE, 1900. 
High noon ! and the rage of war ! 

Our dreams ne'er came to pass — 
What hold the dusk and the night 

For us, Tsar Nicholas ? 



14 THE SLEEPERS. 



THE SLEEPERS. 

The winds lie hushed in the hill 
And the waves upon the seas ; 
The birds are mute and still, 
Deep in their dreaming trees ; 
The earth lies dumb in night, 
And the stars in their degrees 
Sleep with the suns in space, 
With angels, with seraphs bright, 
In the light of God His face. 

Softly lie the heads 

Of the sleepers in their beds ; 

But the sleepers in the ground — 

They alone sleep sweet and sound. 

They alone know rest profound. 

Fear not — soon a rest as deep 

Comes to thee — thou, too, shalt sleep. 



THE UNKNOWN. 15 



THE UNKNOWN. 

Across the desert of Eternity, 

Darkness ! I stretch to thee my helpless hands. 
The human soul sees not nor understands, 

And I, who nothing knows and nothing see, — 
Is Death the only Fiat Lux for me? 

Peace ! restless spirit, let serenity 

Shine ever on thy madly-questioning soul. 

Thou that canst see no part — wouldst see the 
whole ? 
What art thou who wouldst know what thou shalt be ? 

Death is the only Fiat Lux for thee. 



i6 CHOSEN OF ALL. 



CHOSEN OF ALL. 

Come, loved one, come, and be my wife, — 
And I shall lead thee unto Joy, 

Shall ope for thee the doors of Life, 
Its gold to weigh without alloy. 

Come place in mine thy gentle hand 

And follow to the Morning Land ! 

By Love still starred, how can we fail 
To reach yon Hills of Happiness 

By broadest way or stony trail, — 
Who nothing but our love possess ? 

Responsive light pours from thine eyes ! — 

An Adam and an Eve shall find their 
Paradise. 



SEA CHANGE. 17 



SEA CHANGE. 

MAID : 

Their bones toss on the sea-floor stones, 

My sailor's and his ship's ; 
So the tears in my eye are never dry, 
So my thoughts are all one unanswered — " Why ?" 

As the tide to seaward slips, 

Bearing the souls in the ships. 
I sob as the sea sobs on the shore. 
And the voice in the shell forevermore 

Is the voice from his poor, cold lips, — 

As the tide to seaward slips. 

Bearing the souls in the ships. 

LOVER : 

Life's storm hath chilled thy heart-blood warm ; 

Thy tears drop for the dead : — 
With the monsters grim that about him swim, 
He lies in the glaze of the sea-caves dim; 

Life and Love sweep overhead 

And the dead are but the dead. 
Give tears to them — to the living give love; 
Lock not thyself from the bliss thereof 



i8 SEA CHANGE. 

Whilst the blood runs warm and red. 
Life and Love sweep overhead 
And the dead are but the dead. 

MERMAIDEN : 

The sea brought down my love to me; — 

Long have I sought thee, — long! 
By bosom bare and my long, loose hair 
Thy couch shall be and thy pillow fair, 
With my lips for kiss or song. 
Shall mine arms not hold thee long? 
To a woman's sweet name thy lips were shaped 
As a bubbling sigh through the water 'scaped. 
What Earth-woman's love is strong? 
With my lips for kiss or song. 
Shall mine arms not hold thee long? 



DE PROFUNDIS. 



19 



DE PROFUNDIS. 
(a phantasy.) 

In my grave I lie at rest, 

Musing on a mournful sonnet ; — 

Sweet is Silence — sweet is Quiet 
In the Earth as well as on it. 

Four long boards now form my chamber, 
Head-board, foot-board, little boards. 

And the wood-worm feeding on them. 
With his star a lamp affords. 

Cool the clay — no summer sun-stroke 
Here the maddened brain can fret; 

Here, oh, here no thought of anguish 
Dews thy brow with mortal sweat. 

Had I pen and ink to write 
All the praise of fair Fedora, — 

Maid of dust, to thee I 'd scribble 
Songs, as Petrarch once to Laura. 



20 DE PROFUNDIS. 



By the death-watch small that ticks 
By my pillow, I would write thee 

Many a poem, many a song, 

Many a hymn that would delight thee. 

On my elbows, weary elbows, 

I can rise and kiss the sod. 
Rid of bells and smoking tapers. 

Thanks to Thee, Almighty God ! 

Prone I lie upon my back, 

Waiting for Thy End-all 's blowing; 
O'er me frowns a firmament 

Earthen where no star is glowing. 

Earth upon her axis grinds, — 
How the sound my hearing jars ! 

And I know there are great quarrels 
'Mongst Thine ever-burning stars. 

Quarrels, quarrels, endless quarrels, 
Battle, rattle, noise and glare. 

Do not wake me, kind Archangel, 
From my gentle dreams and fair. 



DE PROFUNDIS. 



Tell me, Lord, — me, naked spirt, — 
Do not blast my heart's affection ! 

Comes there Hell — or comes there Chaos? 
Comes, oh, comes — the Resurrection! 

Hear my prayer, and do not wake me. 

Let me sleep and sleep forever. 
For this soul was shaped for dreaming. 
But for living — never, never ! 

Lest I cry aloud in anguish ; 

Lest a storm should break the calm ! 
O Grave, where is Oblivion? 

O Death, where is thy balm ? 



MURAD ALI UNTO DALJA. 



MURAD ALI UNTO DALJA. 

(From " De Profundis.") 

Thus the poet Murad Ali 

Wove his golden heart in rhyme 
Unto his beloved — the first love 

Of his youth — the olden time ! 

They were children both — the heavens 

Spread their bluest mantle o'er them ; 
Life untasted and unwasted 
In Time's garden lay before them. 

Yet the poet Murad Ali 

Spoke in deep, impassioned tone, 
Felt his might and felt Life's burthen — 

Felt, although he had not known : 

" Light of Life ! O Star of Morning ! 

Soul to which my soul must move ! 
Only poets' hearts are faithful, 

Only poets' souls can love. 

" In the kisses from their lips 

Life with Love unending dwells ; 

On the brows of earthly women 

They bind wreaths of immortelles. 



MURAD ALI UNTO DALJA. 23 



" Mighty scepters are their pens, 
And their hearts are sacred urns, 

Crystal lamps where purest fire 
From the gods in splendor burns. 

" Paradise and Happiness 

They disclose to blinded mortals, 
Yet seem blind themselves ; they seldom 

Find their way within the portals. 

" Though they sing like nightingales 

In the vales of Ajalon, 
They can also roar like lions 

Whilst the horrid mood is on. 

" Matchless, terrible the weapons 
They alone were born to wield ; 

Vain are mortal arms against them. 
Vain the great Mahomet's shield ! 



" Mountain-rending rolls of thunder, 
Storms and avalanches dire, 

Flames of Hell, heart-searing pangs, 
Leaping lava, lightning fire, 

" Draughts of bitter, burning wormwood. 
Scorpion whips and cups of gall, 

And their voices vast re-echo 
And through coming ages call. 



24 MURAD ALI UNTO DALJA. 

" For their curses are the curses 
Of the terror-mantled Lord, 

By their words man's name shall perish 
Or his memory be abhorred. 

" In the hell of hells Abaddon, 
As within the Koran written. 

Coils the snake whose baneful apples 
By the erring Eve were bitten. 

" In the Koran may you read it 

How he writhes in throes eternal, 

Yet the poets' hell, my darling, 
Blacker is and more infernal. 

'* Ah, I would not fright thee — fairer 
Thou than all the houris' race ! 

Earth and Heaven will I emblazon 
With the beauty of thy face. 

" When I think no more upon thee, 
Lips or eyes of thine forget, 

Rose of June, may this hand wither ! 
May my sun in sorrow set. 

" Allah, send no strife between us ! 

Nor the evil hour of woe. 
Nor — O,, thou art only woman ! 

Let us hope who may not know. 



MURAD ALI UNTO DALJA. 25 



" Kisses and not curses crown thee ! 

Love, o'er all the world held dear — 
But the truest love of woman 

Still must bear a trace of fear. 

" Do not fear — for now 't is love-time, 

Flowers, pleasures, songs of wonder; 
Let us keep for graying ages 
All the madness and the thunder. 

" Lo, the twilit world below there 
Nevermore this heart entrances; 

In thine eyes my better world Hes, 
Filled with poems and romances. 

" Hear, our springtime genii young 
Chaunt for us our passion's choral — 

Come, I 'II twine thy hair with roses. 

Thou shalt crown my brows with laurel! 

Thus the poet Murad Ali 

Wove his golden heart in rhyme 

Unto his beloved — the first love 
Of his youth — the olden time ! 



26 EARTHLIGHT. 



EARTHLIGHT. 

(From " De Profundis.") 

Leave me, fair one, still the fairest 
Of all maidens of the Mars, — 

Thou the fairest of Mars' maidens, 
Earth the fairest of the stars. 

Leave me to my meditations, 

So this exiled soul may roam 

Far from this to yonder planet 

Gleaming — my terrestrial home. 

By yon ocean, calm of temper, 

Where the sun with zephyr dances- 

Once, O. once uprose the city 

Of that holy man, Saint Francis. 

Vanished, aeons after seons; 

Time that is and Time to be, 
All is time that was, my city 

Of Saint Francis Assisi ! 

Dark are California's woods ! 

Bright are California's vales ! 
Though in them no chorus sounding 

Of bell-voiced nightingales. 



EARTHLIGHT. 27 

Though in them no chorus sounding 

Of bell-voiced nightingales, 
Their wild music oceanic 

Tosses through the bosom's pales. 

Music that with music mingled 

From the fair lips framed to tell 

In the dim woods of her deep love — 
Thy love ! star-eyed Isabel. 

Thou whose heart bore flame from heaven, 

Like the purest altar-ember — 
I remember all thy beauty. 

All thy love do I remember ! 

In Earth's West my thoughts are lying, 
Mountain snow and ocean sand, 

Fir and orange trees I dream of. 
Growing in that sunny land. 

Would I knew that ocean olden. 

Breaking on the shelly shores. 
Still by moon-sprites maddened, foaming 

Through the Golden Gateway roars. 

Ages past by cliff and beachway 

Dreaming, through the air I heard 

Sometimes singing of a siren. 
Sometimes singing of a bird. 



28 EARTHLIGHT. 

Foamed the waters, rose the sea-nymph 
Crying : Come, O come to me ! 

But I fled her waving white arms 
SparkHng with the dripping sea. 

Captive on this ruby planet, 

See, I stretch mine arms afar. 

Yearning for the loved one yearning 
For me from some unknown star. 

Vain for me the jeweled star-shine, 
Maids of beauty, worlds of light; 

Lone I muse upon the chaos 

And the Universe named Night. 



SHAGALON OF THE POLE. 29 



SHAGALON OF THE POLE. 

The ice-bear Shagalon came over the ice to me, 

Huge and white as the sail of a ship comes white 
across the sea ; 

His march was Hke Death's panther-march, soft foot- 
fall on and on, 

And red the mouth and black the eyes of the ice-bear 
Shagalon. 

The berg was rent insunder — in thunder strode he 

forth. 
Lord was he and king was he of all this Uttermost 

North,— 
Lord was he and king was he, and wide 'neath his 

control. 
Uprose Earth's crowning splendor — the diadem of the 

Pole. 

" Old Father of the Floe ! White Father of the milk- 
cubs three ! 

Weary and woeful was the way, but mine eyes are blest 
with thee. 



30 SHAGALON OF THE POLE. 

Homage I render thee and thy young — brave offspring 

fresh and fair; — 
Glory be thine, if thy story be mine — O Father — O 

King— O Bear ! " 

Down the imperial Shagalon sat him haunch-deep in 
the snow, 

Whilst I stood in an humble silence and the cubs played 
to and fro, 

They tousled up their sire's fur, they licked his scarlet 
jaws; 

They gently bit and gently mouthed the dread, death- 
bearing paws. 

" Thou hast seen, O Man, and hast spoken with the 

ice-king Shagalon, 
Gone beyond limit of thy race, for none thus far has 

gone. 
See! written the Law, by the Great Bear's paw in 

the stone-hard ice and snow — 
So far shall the race from the Southland come, but 

shall no farther go ! 

" Fools are the feet of the white man to stray from 

the eye of his sun. 
For fierce in the stern Northeast he meets my wind 

Euroclydon, 



SHAGALON OF THE POLE. 31 

The crush and crush of floes on floes — the fiends in the 

freezing flood, — 
These — all these are his enemies and these are my 

guardians good! 

" Yet could he elude my guardians good, the paws he 

shall not elude 
Of my bears that creep and seek by light of one blue 

star for food, — 
By their haloes, as the ghost-moons mount the heavens 

side by side, 
Only the God of the man-race small shall mark how 

His creature died. 

" Glory and praise to the Bear-god ! — the God-bear in 

the vault, 
His high hand making and moving bergs and floes to 

wild assault ; — 
To us the bearded seal he sends, anhungered when we 

seek, 
The walrus and the seal he sends — their gods are small 

and weak! 

" Fair is this night and fair this day, when the square, 
striped sun uprears, 

Bar by bar, to the lowest star, halts, faints and dis- 
appears. 



22 SHAGALON OF THE POLE. 

O, thou, from thy star-set throne dost glance o'er other 

lands than this ; 
But, than my fairy-fair wonderland, what land that 

fairer is? 

" Thou hast heard what I have spoken, much hast thou 

seen and heard. 
The awe of crystal-crowned peaks, the song of the 

lone ice-bird. 
Farewell, with the word I charge thee with, farewell, 

with a wish from me. 
Stroke me once, brother, on the head — now all ways 

are South for thee ! " 



BANNERS OF SHASTA. 33 



BANNERS OF SHASTA. 

Once more, white Banners of Shasta! flung from the 

breast of your father 
Hoary and eld, o'er the land, dance me the dances 

whose measures 
Swayed with a maddening music and joy this spirit 

of mine. 
Yet not alone was my spirit ; — wrapt in the heart of 

the winds 
Dwelt Thelma, the beautiful Thelma, Thelma the 

radiant one ! 
White in thy majesty soaring, O Shasta, with cumu- 

lous cloud-crown 
And robe of the snows everlasting, everlasting even 

as thou, 
Once in the dimmest, most distant gray spaces of Time 

un forgotten — 
All un forgotten by me ! when the tongues of thy fires 

internal, 
Deep from thy bosom of passion, flew fierce from thy 

crater's red lips, 
There on thy crater's red lips often we lingered, and 

Thelma. 



34 BANNERS OF SHASTA. 

With a glory of grace, fell to dancing on the drift of 

the murky smoke columns. 
Then would she beckon, then would I spring to her 

arms and together. 
Wreathed with thy vapors gigantic, saw thy heart 

suffer, O Shasta. 
All that was once in the oldest days now is no longer. 

Thy fires, 
Thy turbulent fires, have perished, and the ages have 

gently 
In mercy and mildness snowed beauty upon thee and 

made thee 
The monument vast of thyself. Yet this heart's wild 

fires forever 
Must burn with the love that enkindled them, love for 

the air-maiden Thelma, 
The beautiful Thelma ! Far fluttering in wake of the 

whirlwinds, 
Up-caught from the breast of the mountain, the Ban- 
ners of Shasta 
Stream to the music resistless, whose potency heaves 

in my veins 
To keep me alive till the Last Day ; — to watch for the 

whirlwinds, — 
To watch and to wait for the whirlwinds, the whirl- 
winds and Thelma, 
To wait for the whirlwinds and Thelma, — Thelma, the 

air-maiden Thelma ! 



THE VALLEY OF YOSEMITE. 35 



THE VALLEY OF YOSEMITE. 

Would that his voice were mine, Yosemite! 

Who spoke on Sinai with the hidden Lord : 
For only then my song were worthy thee, — 

Song of one humble spirit that adored, — 
Adored thee as the Earth adores her sun. 
Thou vast, thou beautiful, yet awful one! 

Thy loveliness is everlasting, — born 

Of hoary aeons when the ice-bound force 

Wrought thy wild crags, to such perfection torn, 
From height to dimmest depth of glacial course, 

The soul of beauty brooded o'er thy deep. 

And thrilling suns and stars beheld thy sleep. 

When first thy glory on my vision fell. 

The helpless sense scarce grasped the world it saw; 
As in some piled cathedral, 'neath the spell 

Of the low-rolling organ and its awe ; 
Then knew mine eyes the tear of ecstasy. 
Rich with a great and deathless joy in thee. 

I saw thee when the evening sun, all loth 
To leave the purpling splendor of thy walls, 



36 THE VALLEY OF YOSEMITE. 

Lingered in love upon the Titan growth 

Of pines above thy sea-voiced waterfalls, 
From forth whose mist ethereal rainbows sprung, 
With pearls, with diamonds, with emeralds hung. 

Shot down the sparkling shafts of morning light 
Through crystal airs and paled the shades below; 

Up from thy placid lake the sun took flight. 
Gilding thy peaks tremendous with their glow. 

Only the sun can paint thee as is meet: 

How vain for man's slight brush the giant feat ! 

Ye cliffs and pinnacles that fliout the skies. 

Suffused with faery lights and gildings pale; 

Ye clouds that drift like souls upon the rise 
Of domes that drop their torrents like a veil. 

Dim flushes on the far-off snow-crests white. 

And shadows deep and full of shapes as night. 

O, would that more than mortal voice were mine, 
Or seraph's reed to write or brush to limn. 

So might I vaunt thy glories all divine. 

Until my yearning eye with death grew dim ; — 

Then should my spirit woo thy heavenly walls, 

And join the eternal anthem of thy falls ! 



HURKALEM THE HUNTER. n 



HURKALEM THE HUNTER. 

Hurkalem the Hunter, old and dying, sought the 

ground 
Where wan light, where green light made weird a 

sunken dell ; 
The red deer leapt before him joyously, the quail 

around 
Whirred in their ranks. The Fate had closed her for- 

fex — all was well. 
O white locks o'er the shoulders, O faint knees on the 

sward. 
That bent so lowly thrice his lips might kiss his parent 

earth, 
Might thank with blue up-lifted eyes his bending 

patron Lord, 
Who, with the forest-spirits wild, kenned all his 

bosom's worth. 

WOOD-SPRITES : 

Break a branch of cypress — a spray of immortelle, — 

Haste, ye elfins, ere he dies, 

Spread immortal glories 'fore his mortal eyes, — 
Faeries from each Hower and gray gnomes from each 

cell, 
Break a branch of cypress — a spray of immortelle. 



38 HURKALEM THE HUNTER. 



Hurkalem the Hunter sends his praise, his thanks to 
Thee, 

Thou to whom Thy watcher calls from Nature's 

world of green. 
Whatever runs or flies or creeps Thou gavest unto 
me; — 

1 kept the huntsman's faith, O God, in this Thy pure 

demesne ! 
Never I slew but 'twas for Thee a votive sacrifice ; 
A worship pure as Abraham's soared upward with the 

blood — 
Ye winds that blow my breath aloft, how turn ye chill 

as ice, — 
Now bear my soul o'er Western seas from out the 

Western wood! 

BEASTS AND BIRDS: 

Break a branch of cypress — a spray of immortelle, — 
Howl and wail your deepest notes, 
Throats of hair and fur and tuneful feathered 
throats, 
Mourn his death, besing his life, for he hath loved us 

well! 
Break a branch of cypress — a spray of immortelle. 

Hurkalem the Hunter's head bent slowly to the grass 
That spread its richest mantle for his pall, of as- 
phodel, — 



HURKALEM THE HUNTER. 39 

Quivered the trees with plunge of wings, — thus did 

his spirit pass 
Who died without a sigh, — without a candle, book or 

bell. 
For Hurkalem the Hunter the wildwood life is o'er 
In the dim regions of his rule. Here God his soul 

accept. 
Pale Scytheman, Mighty Hunter, thou hast proved his 

conqueror : — 
There sprang a blood-red flower and o'er his visage 

wept. 

TREES AND FLOWERS: 

Break a branch of cypress — a spray of immortelle, — 
Rock with grief your branching heads. 
Tufted trees and toinfring trunks; bloom flowers 
from your beds; 

Deck, ye lost and legioned leaves, our silent sentinel! 

Break a branch of cypress — a spray of immortelle. 



40 PICKETT'S CHARGE. 



PICKETT'S CHARGE. 

Mark ! where the grim Hill lowers, 

Whose dread, black muzzles throw 
Thousands of iron showers 

Sheer on the gory foe. 
To the red roar of the guns, 
Answer old Virginia's sons, — 

Whilst the shattered air complains 
To the dun and solemn sky, 

Breeding forth the gentle rains 
From on high — blest on high ! 

" The foe lies massed before us," 

(Pickett thus unto his men), 
" The Meteor Flag streams o'er us, — 

Ye know your duty then. 
For the last hope is not lost; 
Let it cost what it shall cost ! 

Farewell, all — a long good-bye. 
Victory comes or comes the grave ; — 

Where the heart that fears to die 
With the brave — by the brave ? " 



PICKETT'S CHARGE. 41 



Now fell an awful quiet 

No heart might long endure ; 
The cannons' crashing riot 

Ceased its wild overture. 
While the voice of Slaughter cried 
To the souls on either side : 

Lo, the final test is come 
For your triumph or defeat, — 

Hark ! What says the rolling drum ? 
Peace is sweet ! Death is sweet ! 

Wide from the forest crowning 

Fair Seminary Ridge, 
Unto the crests that, frowning, 

The Northern batteries bridge, — 
For Honor's sake! — for Glory's sake! 
That wild path must Pickett take. 

There his heaving line is seen, 
Wall so formed of noblest clay, 

Wall of gray against the green, 
All of gray — saddest gray ! 

The chilling hush was ended, 
The guns their thunder spoke 

From those blue heights defended 
By flesh and flame and smoke. 

All along the forest's marg^e 



42 PICKETT'S CHARGE. 

Flew the order : Forward, charge ! 

And the line that lately stood 
As of iron, rolls anon 

Forward, forward like a flood, 
On and on — ever on ! 

Balls weave the air by millions, 

Winged with their fiery breath ; 
The sulphur fumes' turbillions 

Become their shrouds in death. 
In the gray commander's eye 
Shines a tear that will not dry. 

For he knows the Cause must fail, 
For he mourns his noble braves, — 
See! the flag that they assail; 
Still it waves ! grandly waves ! 

Ye heroes ! faint and gory, 

Up to the dripping mouth 
Of cannon, wrest your glory, 

Brave hearts from forth the South. 
But of thrice five thousand men. 
Few, how few ! join ranks again ! 

O, forever glow your deed ; — 
Hallowed with a golden Fame 

By your seed to latest seed, 
Be your name ! noble name ! 



PICKETT'S CHARGE. 43 



Now rusts the sabre polished. 

War's horrent engines rust, 
That icon grim, demolished. 

Lies lowly in the dust. 
White on Gettysburg's green field — 
Lo, the Union stands revealed ! 

Hidden by a common sod, 
There are never two, but one. 

And the will of one great God 
Shall be done ! shall be done ! 



44 CRUCIFIXION. 



CRUCIFIXION. 

Darkness swallows up the living day ; 
The red disk of the sun is swept away ; 

Lo, the temple's awful veil is rent ; — 
The air is heavy with Terror's breath and Despair fills 

the firmament ! 
The dead spring to life in their shrouds 

And burst from their powerless graves, 
Blind fear seizes fast on the crowds, — 
The hills and the plains are shaken and split with 

ruinous earthen waves ; 
All Nature is torn with pain, — 
And the Lamb of God is slain. 

On the anguished hilltop from afar 
A gentle sheen enkindles like a star, 

From the vault's eclipse is born a light. 
And a cross is twylitten with glory and severed away 

from night. 
A sound as of praying is heard 

And loud lamentations are borne 
By winds, and the silence is stirred 



CRUCIFIXION. 45 



By weeping of men in their woe and by wailing of 
women forlorn. 
At the foot of the cross they lie 
Who have seen their Savior die. 

Thickest may the clouds enwrap thy head, 
Thou Earth with bloody face, whose Lord is dead ! 

Loudest may ye groan, O Heavens, O Man, 
For by Him is the sacrifice made, by Him is fulfilled 

God's plan. 
O World he hath saved, can thy crime 

Be atoned by the woe of thy loss? 
Can Penitence, Travail or Time 
Restore God's Begotten to mankind or release the dead 

Christ from the cross? 
Thou that didst love man so well, 
God ! Master ! Emmanuel ! 



46 THE NIGHT-BELLS OF NOEL. 



THE NIGHT-BELLS OF NOEL. 

L 

Hear the bells in all the steeples, 
O'er the Nations and their Peoples, 
Shout once more their yearly Falsehood, holpen by the 
Tongue and Pen! 
From your hearts comes no rebelling 
'Gainst that Lie their throats are telling ? 
" Glory be to God in Heaven — Peace on Earth — Good 
Will to Men ! " 

n. 

Generations, sin-curst, hoary, 

Tell! where is your Peace, your Glory? 

There is neither one nor other unto either God or Man ! 
Years on years their surges rolling, 
Bring us still the false bells' tolling. 

Bring us still the ancient Seraph-song through Beth- 
lehem that ran. 

in. 

Up through Earth's fierce fever rising, 
Hark! the sounds of solemnizing, — 



THE NIGHT-BELLS OF NOEL. 47 



'T is the Fore-world sends to After-world her Christ 
Mass burning red, — 
By the crosses, gilt, uplifted 
In the cities' murk undrifted, 
By the Symbols of the Temples, Monuments of Virtues 
dead. 

IV. 

Cease ! ye monsters, cease your clamors, 
Lest the voices of your hammers, 
By the storm of mortal curses roaring up, be far out- 
blown. 
Mark, oh, mark ! your note unheeding, 
Christ's deep wounds once more are bleeding, — 
Vain for Him your pealing pseans— vain for us your 
thunder-tone ! 

V. 

Ill the Sphere of our Disaster 
Lies, abandoned by the Master. 
See red Murder's hellish shadow— hear the lips that 
Heaven blaspheme ; — 
Thou, of God the Image Earthy, 
Art thou happy, Man unworthy? — 
Is it thou that cryest woe to Him from Suffering's 
Fire-stream ? 



48 THE NIGHT-BELLS OF NOEL. 

VI. 

Since that Vigil, held by stranger 
Kings and Stars above the Manger, 
All His Birth-night's joy has vanished like the Man- 
child sent of God. 
Thieves and traffickers deflower 
His pure fanes in Mammon's hour. 
And a People stained wih Rapine and huge Greed 
awaits the Rod. 

VII. 

Pluto's Princes, sateless giants. 
Glower from the thrones of tyrants, 
At whose bases lie the Millions, breathing Life's thick 
Battle-dust. 
Over Law itself ye raised them ; 
Over God ye worshiped, praised them ; — 
Meet it is ye bow to icons squatting in their golden 
lust! 

VIII. 

Hurled into your jaws sonorous, 
Tossing engines, take your Chorus ! 
Your false tidings take, unfitting, till our Souls be 
chastened all ; 



THE NIGHT-BELLS OF NOEL. 49 

Till our Hearts, by Mercy watered, 
Bloom, and Self by Self be slaughtered ; 
Till the frowning desert-heavens show their Orbs and 
drop their Pall. 

IX. 

Then, anew your mouths may bellow 
Words from fellow-bell to fellow, — 
Words whose might shall thrill the Earth-globe belted 
with each golden zone; 
Nation shall sing unto Nation ; 
Man to Man shall bring Salvation, 
And from yon bright world God's Glory and His Peace 
shall light our own ! 



so THE HEAD AND HAND OF MURIETTA. 



THE HEAD AND HAND OF MURIETTA. 

Livid head and blackened hand, 

Severed from a bandit chief — 
Hand that wrought what head had planned 

For assassin and for thief. 

Face of fiend, illumed by Hell, 

Through whose Gorgon eyeballs shine 

Hate and craft no death can quell, 
As they glitter into mine ! 

Safely prisoned in the glass. 

Dream of bloody orgies still ; 
Through that head what thoughts must pass ! 

How that hand must lust to kill ! 

Fleshly orbs and mirrors black, — 
Still the scenes where men did die, 

Still the blood that marked thy track. 
Redden in each demon eye. 

Lo, the hacienda's flame 

Tells the ruin of thy raid. 
And a place that knows no name, 
Knows the wailing of a maid ! 



THE HEAD AND HAND OF MURIETTA. 51 

Oft his gold the gamester stored 
Warm by his triumphant hand — 

Oft thine own received his hoard 
With a short and sharp command. 

At the gay fiesta's ball 

Maiden laughed with cavalier, 
Till a shudder shot through all : 

" Murietta ! he is here." 

Seemed betimes thy courage lost, 

Faint with mountain-weight of crime — 

It was but a ride at most 

Where the Mission bells held chime. 

But a swift ride by the moon 

Where the pale adobes shone, 
Craving from the Christ a boon — 

And the Virgin carved of stone. 

Sunk on knees abased to pray, 

Thou and all thy robber horde 
Did kiss the rudest cross where lay 

The mangled body of the Lord. 

It is said that thou didst give 

Ravished riches to the poor, 
So to thee when fugitive, 

Opened each his sheltering door. 



52 THE HEAD AND HAND OF MURIETTA. 

Some do say thy soul was crazed 
By a grief too great to bear — 

By a happy homestead razed 
And a slaughtered wife and heir. 

If these things be true, O may 

Prayers of priests and poor men's tears 

Count for thee on Judgment Day 
'Gainst the sum of thy arrears. 

But nor prayers nor tears could stay 
Heavenly vengeance when it fell, 

When thy mates were swept away. 
When thy soul was flung to Hell. 

Murietta, bandit chief 

Of the dim days long ago, 
Robber, murderer and thief, 

Wolf of lawless Mexico ! 

It was long, oh, long ere fell 

Thy fierce head beneath the Law, — 

San Benito's hills may tell 

What that day the vultures saw. 

Safely prisoned in the glass, 

Dream of bloody orgies still ; 
Through that head what thoughts must pass ! 

How that hand must lust to kill ! 



POESY BANISHED. 53 



POESY BANISHED. 

Mine eyes reversed to inner light — 

(For such the spirit may assoil) 

Above the tempest and the toil, 
A vision passed me in the night. 

Its face I saw not, nor its sex 

Could know, but it seemed fair and strong; 

It trailed a golden robe along 
O'er the terrestrial convex. 

Fierce on its front a meteor blazed. 
Its crown of massy gold. Three stars 
Shot giant lustre forth the bars. 

Whelming the mortal eye that gazed ! 

Two semi-moons its wings, — a storm 
Of wind whirled through the upper air. 
Charged with a perfume faint and fair, 

Then closed upon that vanished form. 

Down from the rayless zenith came 
Twin corruscating globes that turned 
To liquid brilliance as they burned 

With threshing and wild-darting flame ! 



54 POESY BANISHED. 

Then something like a sigh was heard, 
Vast as the heave of earthly seas, 
Deep as the planetary breeze 

That once the primal chaos stirred. 

The hissing orbs swirled down and down, 
Then wedded close the Earth in air, 
Flashing with fiery splendor there, — 

Lost jewels from her ruddy crown. 

These were the tears that Poetry 
Had wept upon its Godward flight, 
This was the shape that cleft the night 

Within the void's unfathomed sea ! 

Up from the nether world was cast 
The pulsing roar of engines' beat, 
The clink of coin, the rush of feet. 

The smoke, the glare of cities vast. 



THE HAPPY HOURS. 55 



THE HAPPY HOURS. 

I walked with thee in the sunshine, 

In the starshine 

And the rain; — 
And dark night and cloudiest weather 

Saw us twain, 
Hand in hand, walking together — 
Shall we ne'er walk so again ? 

Only the trees in the forest, 

Or the dumb walls 

Saw us kiss, 
Saw what a rapture then thrilled us 

With its bliss. 
Saw our hearts' vintage that filled us 
Ambrosial goblets from this ! 

Or whether through woods or the city- 
Crowded with shapes. 
Love was guide. 
And we both felt his presence immortal 

At our side ; 
His torch threw us light and the portal 
Of joy in our lives opened wide. 



S6 THE HAPPY HOURS. 

That was the Past, — and this Present, 

Love, swiftly flies 

And is Past ; 
When Youth and its Passion shall perish, 

Love shall last, — 
We know it! We nurse it! We cherish 
The heart's great covenant fast. 

I walked with thee in the sunshine. 

In the starshine 

And the rain ; — 
Age's night and its wild, winter weather 

Shall see twain, 
Hand in hand, walking together — 
Through Life to the end of its lane. 



THE SKIPPERS. 57 



THE SKIPPERS. 

" How the darkening days flow by ! 
Daily we grow old and older, 
Daily our warm blood runs colder, 

Daily, breath by breath, we die." 

Thus the gray-beard spoke — four score 
Years his ancient poll had whitened, — 
And his faded orbs once brightened. 

Then grew dimmer than before, 

" Soon must come the anchor's fall, — 
The all-hailed and blest conclusion; — 
Let not terror nor confusion 

Seize thy soul at Azrael's call." 

All to me the Sage addressed 

Wisest words, — his eye, dim-seeing, 
Scarce beheld the radiant being 

That against my side had pressed. 

" Skipper in Life's fever-ship, 

When the World-sea winds shall smite thee. 
When men's serpent teeth shall bite thee. 

Curses vast shall crowd thy lip. 



58 THE SKIPPERS. 



" Many seas I voyaged o'er, 

Youngling, ere I brought to harbor — 
Now from out this green-grown arbor, 

In yon skies behold my shore! 

" Fire and fast and storm my part ; 
Deep and dread the Past's dark ocean 
Rolls o'er wrecks of mad emotion 

Bound by cordage of the heart. 

" On the reefs of Passion He 

Faiths I held ere Woman faltered. 
All thy fair world shall be altered 

When thy Love's illusions die. 

" Through and through the sea-paths lone 
Shone no Northwest Passage later, 
Ere I sailed from Youth's Equator 

Unto Age's Arctic Zone. 

" Bound in ice my joy-dreams wild. 
Even as thine shall be, young brother, — 
Soon our kind and earthen Mother 

Claims her Life-a-weary child ! 

" Close beneath thy manly bloom, 
I behold a spectre grinning, 
Culling from thy brows the thinning 

Locks that sorrow must consume. 



THE SKIPPERS. 59 



" Close beneath that visage fresh 
Of yon maid thy presence gracing, 
I behold a worm defacing 

All her beauty of the flesh." 

" Speak no more ! " I cried, " too much 
Hast thou spoken in thy madness, — 
Wouldst thou mar her May-time gladness, 

Whom no chilling breath must touch? 

" Tell him, treasured one, the Truth ! 

Tell of Love the seas outlasting ; 

Tell of hearts no woe is blasting ; 
Tell of flowers blown from youth." 

On his beard a kiss she pressed, — 

Then the young time blessed the olden, 
Then his silvern paled her golden 

Hair that showered o'er his breast. 

In his ear she breathed a word. 
Magic word of might beguiling, 
Soon his iron face to smiling 

Melted and his heart was stirred. 

All his creed of Woe and Fear, 

At the voice of Beauty's daughter, 
Vanished like the snow to water 

And was cancelled with a tear. 



6o THE SKIPPERS. 



Like ripe harvest grain to wind, 
On his breast his head sank lower, 
Harvest grain that waits the mower, 

The mute mower, stem, yet kind. 

Thus we left him, she and I, 

Still and lonely like a mountain 

Crowned with peace, from which a fountain 
Calls the Spring-time flowering by. 



THE EARTH-VOICES. 6i 



THE EARTH-VOICES. 

A sweet bird sat a-singing, a-singing, a-singing, 
Hidden in its lofty house of leaves above my head, — 
Blithely through the air its rich melody came ringing 
And struck into my heart of heart that had so often 
bled. 

But the burthen of its song — 
Or high or low, but ye can know 

Who suffer and who long ! 
It sang : " I sing because I die ; 

I sing for all yet know not why. 
And Death alone shall still my tone. 
Or whether on the greenest bough or in the 

bluest sky. 
Though all things shall be changed to dust, 
Though the trees may die and the leaves they 
must." 
The sweet bird sat a-singing its thrice unhappy song. 

A fair maid sat a-singing, a-singing, a-singing; 
Her listening lover stood apart and joy was in his 

face ; — 
He laughed, he ran, he kissed her, his arms about her 

flinging : 



62 THE EARTH-VOICES. 

My memory leaped, a burning thing, — I left the blessed 
place. 

But the burthen of her song — 
Or high or low, but ye can know 

Who suffer and who long! 
She sang: " I sing because I love; 

I sing like yonder bird above, 
And love is theme of every dream 
That fancy weaves me day by day, or through 

my heart may rove. 
Small care though all be doomed to dust — 
But that love should die ! — as the lovers must." 
The fair maid sat a-singing her sweet, her tristful song. 

A mother sat a-singing, a-singing, a-singing, 

Slowly swayed the cradle that held all her happiness. 

And ever as she rocked she bent above the cradle 

swinging. 
And ever as she bent, her words fell like a soft caress. 
But the burthen of her song — 
Or high or low, but ye can know 

Who suffer and who long ! 
She sang : " I sing because I give 

My life, my love, so he may live. 
The babe I bore — to me far more 
Than is the man I hold as dead, whose love 
was fugitive. 



THE EARTH-VOICES. 63 

O woe, my child, that thou art dust ! 
That the young may die as the old they must !" 
A mother sat a-singing this unending human song. 

A poet sat a-singing, a-singing, a-singing 

Vast melodies from forth his heart that pealed like 

Memnon's stone, 
Or whether wild with joy the notes or sore with 

sorrow ringing — 
They were but chorus to your souls, re-echoed from 
his own. 

For the burthen of his song — 
Or high or low, but ye can know 

Who suffer and who long ! 
He sang : " I sing because I feel 
What I can nevermore reveal. 
No song hath might to rend the night 
Wherein the gods in mercy all the after-worlds 

conceal. 
Yet peace ! ye spirits robed in dust — 
For the young may know and the old they must ! " 
The poet sat a-singing this eternal, tragic song. 



64 THE INTERIM. 



THE INTERIM. 

Veiled with thy hair, thy features draw 

My gaze — and Love is dumb with awe. 

Still, still the voiceless void of Nought, 

Sends forth unconquered one dread thought ; 

'T is a sharp flame my heart to sear — 

Listen, my love, and do not fear. 

O, when that day of dread is due. 

When part we must, we hapless two; 

Remember! all the time that flies 

When drowned with earth this body lies, 

Is but a briefer day than this, 

Far briefer than our briefest kiss. 

^ons on aeons waste away ; 

And what to us? — a second's stay, 

An interlude that angels play. 

The Soul may live by Will and Strife, 

Since Life is but the way to Life. 

What hope holds the unknowable, 

Save hope that I with thee may dwell ? 

Heaven with thee, without thee Hell. 

Awakened by strange morning light, 

Fair in our faces after night, 

We shall arise new life to greet 

Like travelers from distant lands. 

With lips to lips and hands in hands, 

When Death makes Life complete. 



YOSEMITE. 6s 



YOSEMITE. 

Thou hast Earth's utmost beauty, mighty gem 
Of ice-wrought granite from the hand of God ! 
And never man thy purple deeps hath trod, 

But he hath felt the awe that mantles them. 

Thou art the loveliest poem of Nature; thou 
Art Music, Mystery and Magnitude ! 
What eye e'er thy majestic glory viewed, 

But wept and led the shaken soul to bow ! 



66 SAVIOR OF THE SEQUOIAS. 



SAVIOR OF THE SEQUOIAS. 
(To Josephine Clifford McCrackin.) 

The Titans of the forest, to the west winds sprung 

forth from the sea, 
Give them, O worthy 'mongst women, their thanks 

and their greetings for thee ! 
When, under their ancient, o'er-arching arms, your 

feet shall bestir the grass. 
Bright dews from their boughs shall be shaken on the 

snows of your head as you pass. 
From their roots, clutching deep in the earth, to each 

patriarch's head in the skies, 
The race of these giants had vanished, as the race of 

mortals dies; 
Coeval with Earth and defying Time, they had perished 

by the blade. 
If never your pitying heart and hand the hand of the 

vandal had stayed. 
Therefore, in the forest silences, in the tongue of the 

noblest trees, 
A name is whispered with love to the winds in their 

twilight symphonies. 
They that are older than Egypt or Ind and shall 

outhve the Ultimate Man — 



SAVIOR OF THE SEQUOIAS. 67 

The deathless sequoias immortal shall hold that name 

like the spirit of Pan. 
'T is for this that the bearded Titans to the west winds 

sprung forth from the sea, 
Give them, O worthy 'mongst women, their thanks 

and their greetings for thee ! 



68 OUT OF CHARYBDIS. 



OUT OF CHARYBDIS. 

The drone of the sea 
Lulled me to sleep and I dreamt of thee ; — 
The light of thy mightiest love enwound thee 
And lay like the mantle of Mary around thee! 

Love enwound thee 
And lay like the virtue of Mary around thee. 
The winds through the sails with low choruses 

rang 
And bore to me songs that thy lips once sang. 

Their choruses rang 
Sweet with the songs that thy lips once sang. 
And he, the good daemon that guarded my breast, 
Caught up the strain, and my fancy the rest. 

The heart in my breast 
Thrilled with the strain — Fancy brought me the 

rest ; 
I felt every throb of thy blest heart repeating: 
Our love is eternal, — the world it is fleeting ! 



OUT OF CHARYBDIS. 69 

Thy wild heart repeating : 
Our love is eternal, — though all things be fleeting ! 
I felt this — I felt all thy kisses as warm 
As when my swift arms had encinctured thy form. 

Thy kisses were warm 
As when thy soft arms had encircled my form — 
Thou wast mine ! — O, all changed to embraces 

as cold 
As those the sea hath for her lovers untold ! 

Embraces how cold ! 
When she clips to her bosom her lovers untold. 
Down to the floor of the floods sank the ship 
And I with the sound of thy name on my lip. 

Down, down with the ship, — 
My prayer was the sound of thy name ' from my 

lip! 
Now God's Heaven is Heaven the more at thy 

side: 
This is the tale how I loved thee and died ! 



70 SEMPER. 



SEMPER. 

So oft thy hand was laid in mine, 

So oft our lips have met, 
So oft thy heart's great pulse divine 

Throbbed here — who can forget? 

Never seemed day fair day, save we 

Saw day within our eyes. 
Whilst night a treble night would be 

That barred our Paradise. 

Few words we spoke, each speaking heart 
Held parle more wild and fast ; 

We swore that we should never part ; 
We swore our love should last ! 

Swift roll the brief and briefer years 

Bearing our lives away ; 
We loved ! We love ! — the very spheres 

Shall crumble to decay — 

Shall crumble to decay and rust, 
Ere that our love should end, — 

In God's Jehosaphat our dust 
Shall from one tomb ascend ! 



MARTINIQUE. 71 



MARTINIQUE. 

A suspiration quivers from the ground — 

Death's weary sigh, through town and valley fair; 

A dreadful chill, as at the Gorgon's stare. 
Streams from some hidden terror all unbound. 
Mark, how the crater's fiery head is crowned 

With clouds and frenzied winds that lash the air. 

Woe ! Woe ! ye pleasant places smiling there — 
Such doom have Sodom and Pompeii found ! 
Open the infernal cauldron roaring flies 

In vapor, thunder-bursts and flaming rain ; 
Seas leap the clouds and Hell all Heaven defies — 

Of man and all his toil what marks remain? 

A shaft that soars to chaos on the plain — 
An arm to God upstretched 'neath ashen skies. 



72 THE DEPARTED ONE. 



THE DEPARTED ONE. 

Thy soul above all souls must I adore 

And worship its great Presence in thine eyes, 
Lights dowered with a ray from Paradise, 

Whose light is Love, as Love is Heaven's core. 

So much I hoped not and dare hope no more 
Than but to watch thee in those utmost skies, 
For me the loveliest of all stars that rise 

Joyous unto the night with all their lore. 

Did I not know thee once, not long ago, 
Ere ever gathered in this life's small shell? 

Can doubt make ebb the heart's flood, — w^hen 
the soul 
Cries out beyond the world it loves thee well? 

Yet the Lethean river parts us — O, 
What mists from up its silent waters roll ! 



PHANTASMAGORIA. 73 



PHANTASMAGORIA. 

Lost on this shadowland's phantasmal shore, 

By the bleak moor I stand, whose utmost bound 
Glooms to the realms of kings huge sorrows crowned 

With iron crowns and Woe that dies no more, 

No more while Memory lives. Clouds roll, winds 
roar 
Wild through the spectral heavens where spirits 

drowned 
With pain, float on the gray air-deeps ; — no sound 

Save sighing o'er those scenes well-loved of yore. 

Unhappy, wandering shapes ! with torment dire 
In this cloud-purgatory pent, in view 
Of coolest skies and waters meek and blue 

As Jesus' eye, you feel once more the fire 

Of old Earth passionate ere you expire 

In mists, where weakly this sad sun shines through. 



74 TO DR. C. W. DOYLE. 



TO DR. C. W. DOYLE. 

Dear Doyle, mine elder brother in the art 

That fires the world to beauty and whose powers, 
Though the gods' gift to us are not all ours, 

Nor ours alone the rapture of the heart, 

Since men from us may claim their rightful part; — 
Those days bloom in my memory's richest bowers, 
Days on that foaming shore beside the flowers, 

O'er many a tale to make the brave blood start! 

Tales reaped from out that mystic morning land, 
Thine India, rich with love or hate or crime. 

Where man breathes undebased by the hand 
Of Progress that that aged us ere our time. 

There, sure, the soul of Nature dwells unbanned 
Where ring such mighty echoes of her Prime! 



ADIEU, ADIEU! 75 



ADIEU, ADIEU! 

All the doubt, the delusion is over, 

Yet forever shall linger the pain, 
And the sorrow my breast must uncover 

To thee, O beloved in vain! 
On the radiant dreams of the dawning 

Of a love far too happy for me, 
Night has set, still my dream of the morning 

Was but this : to be loved by thee. 

Oh, for thee I once builded a palace 

Of the starriest gems, in my soul, 
And sipped joy from the rim of the chalice 

Of Life — of which thou wast the Whole, 
That palace is ruin, and sorrow 

With phantoms my bosom has filled. 
Sighing far through To-day and To-morrow 

" Our voices shall never be stilled." 

Love, thou wast to me what in Heaven, 
The Lord to the angels must be. 

And the love they give Him could not even 
Exceed the vast love I gfave thee! 



76 ADIEU, ADIEU! 



my sun, O pure star ever-shining, 
When blackness my world over-cast. 

When to thee in thy goodness my pining, 
Sad soul clung so fondly, so fast. 

There was nought, there is nought that could 
sever 

My soul and my soul's love from thine. 
We have met ; we have parted forever ; 

All the tears, all the longing be mine ! 

1 have strength to bear all that has lost me 
My all, — strength to bear all its pain, 

And strength still to love, but 't would cost me 
Too much to behold thee again ! 

Ah, could I but forget vanished blisses, 

From that Heaven of our own happiness, 
Could I lose multitudinous kisses. 

Nor recall each so-ardent caress ! 
It were light as the flight of a feather 

To count thee with transient things. 
Had our hearts ne'er been welded together 

By Passion and the heat of his wings. 

O God ! at the last hour's tolling 

I knew that I loved her alone ; 
O'er my heart Thy sad angels were rolling 

In my blood, a cold burial-stone, 



ADIEU, ADIEU! ^^ 



Then I knew that we loved far too blindly, 
My darling, my heart, not to fall, 

Yet those lips kissed so oft answered kindly : 
" Love excepts not who holds us in thrall." 

Alas, for the Good doomed to perish. 

And the Beautiful nothing can save ! 
Alas, that on Earth all we cherish 

Sinks into Despair or the Grave ! 
Blindly in dreams we have faltered. 

In hopes and in visions and dreams ; — 
Are the Good and the Beautiful altered 

To the world and the waste that it seems? 

All the doubt, the delusion is over. 

Yet forever shall linger the pain, 
And the sorrow my breast must uncover 

To thee, O beloved in vain ! 
On the radiant dreams of the dawning 

Of a love far too happy for me, 
Night has set, still my dream of the morning 

Was but this : to be loved by thee. 



78 EPILOGUE EVERLASTING. 



EPILOGUE EVERLASTING. 

The roses are withered ; their petals have flown ; 

Their Ufe and their perfume are past. 
The roses were many, but now there is none. 

The last rose has perished — the last ! 

The laboring tides sweep the sea ; in their might 
They bear the brave ship with its mast. 

The black waters league with the whirlwinds at 
night — 
The ship is up-swallowed at last. 

The broken heart and the heart that it broke, 

And Passion's soul-withering blast, 
And Sorrow and Joy have evanished like smoke, 

And both hearts lie quiet at last. 

Perished their love lies and perished their hate; 

Pain, misery, rapture all past ! 
When joy far too great brings us sorrow too great — 

It seems but the sorrow can last. 



EPILOGUE EVERLASTING. 79 



All the hopes of Life and the hopes of Love 
Must the shadow of Death overcast? 

O, must the shade follow the shine from above? 
Must all things be nothing at last? 

All things are nothing at last. All is one 
With the roses whose perfume is past. 

Ah, the roses were many, the roses are gone. 
The last rose has perished — the last! 



8o LOVE RESURGENT. 



LOVE RESURGENT 

Forth from the ashes of Hope, 

Girded with strength Uke the hair 

Of the Samson, arisen to cope 

With chimeras of Death and Despair, — 

Mount, Love — like a mihtant star, 

Burn with pale flare through thy night ! 

The clouds that enshrouded thee are 
As shadows dissolved by thy light. 

Winged by the Soul and the Mind, 
Spurred by the stroke of the Heart, 

Where shalt thou seek or where find 
Thy mate — thy counterpart? 

Thou art a fragment from Heaven; 

Thou art a spark from its flame ; 
Thou art all Life and its leaven — 

And God is thy holiest name! 



LILITH OF ELD. 8i 



LILITH OF ELD. 

They tasted the sweet despair 
That flowed from her mortal kiss, 

And they hung by one silken hair 
Above a black abyss ! 

For many had gone to wreck 
On the gleam of her coral lips, 

By her shining finger's beck 
That boded no eclipse. 

Then her smile had buried them 
As the waves the broken bark, 

For what could bide or stem 
That magic dread and dark? 

Deep down from her starry eyes 
The path led straight to hell, 

And never the soul could rise 
That to their bottom fell. 

She trod on the hearts of men, 
As they were pavement stones; 

She danced, a light o' the fen. 
Across their chamel bones. 



82 LILITH OF ELD. 



And the thoughts ! the thoughts that rushed 

Like eagles from her eye — 
And the smile — the smile that crushed 

The slaves it lured to die. 

But a curse fell out of the night; 

It singled forth her head ; 
She vanished out of our sight 

And the world cried: She is dead! 

She lived ! she loved ! she mourned ! 

For a love she ne'er could own ; 
Her heart was racked and scorned 

With the vengeance she had sown. 

And he, to whom this tale 

She told, lives doomed to write 

The terror, tears and bale 

Of her — through night and night. 



MAIDEN OF MADNESS. 83 



MAIDEN OF MADNESS. 

The longing and inveighing 

Are gone — the doubt, the pain; 
The nights my soul dismaying, 
Not once my head down-laying, 
Whilst thoughts of thee kept preying 

Upon my heart and brain. 
And whilst a voice kept saying 

That all would be in vain — 

All love would be in vain ! 

That voice hath truly spoken, — 

Might I have heard before ! 
Ere my sad heart was broken 
For thy triumphant token, 
Before Love's great tree oaken 

Fell blasted to the core; — 
Ye angels mild, invoken 

By sorrow, sigh no more. 

Ye angels weep no more! 

The world to mist has faded. 
One waste and moaning sea 



84 MAIDEN OF MADNESS. 

By maddened ghosts invaded, 
Whose midnight shapes have shaded 
Those once fair fields that traded 

Their joy so full and free; — 
Through Hell's dire stream I 've waded, 

And Life is dust to me — 

Ashes and dust to me. 



COMPLAINT. 85 



COMPLAINT. 

She was fond of tragedies — 
Loved to read of death and woe. 

" I shall write thee one," said I — 
" One that shall be comme il faut.' 

Then I wrote in strains romantic, 
In a solemn, joyless tone — 

All the sorrows of another, 

When I might have writ my own. 

Yes, my love, believe me, truly; 

If thine eyes my heart might see, 
They might read a tragic story 

That was written there by thee. 



86 PAST AND PRESENT. 



PAST AND PRESENT 

Once again I see those houses — 
Wander in those streets once more, 

Where, eleven years before, 
I was happy, O Estrella. 

Me the moon nigh drew to weeping 
Tears of salt, which I abhor; 

Yet, eleven years before, 

We were happy both, Estrella. 

Now a feeling, through me stealing, 
Saddens all my bosom's core — 

As eleven years before, 

You are happy still, Estrella. 



THE WORM. 87 



THE WORM. 

Vanished is his misery, 

Almost vanished is his pain. 
Nay, by Jove, if this continue 

Soon he '11 eat and sleep again ! 
Yet, 't is true his food is tasteless 

And his slumber brings no rest. 
'T is that dismal guest called Sorrow 

Sleeps and eats within his breast. 



88 MISERERE. 



MISERERE. 

The last few prayers are done, 

The pall and shroud are spread ; 
Seven tapers at thy feet 

And seven at thy head. 
Thy hands are crossed upon 

Thy bosom white where now 
Thy heart is stilled. O Death, 

How beautiful art thou! 



THE ANGEL IN EXILE. 89 



THE ANGEL IN EXILE. 

Many — many — many 

Were the tears she shed, 
Tears, tears as fair as any 

Fair roses white or red, 

Or HHes in their bed, — 
Pale lilies, rare as any 

That now bloom o'er her head. 

At last the heart was broken ; 

Like a golden shell 
It spilt its life — the token 

Proclaiming all was well 

With her where seraphs dwell. 
Where only Love is spoken, — 

A tongue we cannot spell. 

With love brought down from Heaven 

Her evil hap began. 
That love to God once given. 

Was cast away on man. 

Yet a milk-white lustre ran 
In flame through skies at even. 

When the Lord removed his ban. 



90 THE QUEST ETERNAL. 



THE QUEST ETERNAL. 

Still shall I hew thee out of dreams, 
Still limn thee day by day, — 

O thou, whose face too saintly seems 
In mists to pass away ! 

Who comest at the pause of night 
From out the spirit realm, — 

Celestial exhalation ! light 
That dost my soul o'erwhelm. 

Would I might seize thee as thou art. 

And keep thee till the day. 
Then shouldst thou nevermore depart 

Upon the pale dawn's ray. 

What art thou? — vision, sprite or muse; 

Speak ! so my tongue may well 
The glory of thy brow transfuse 

Throughout this earthen shell. 

Helen or Eve or Ashtaroth ! — 

Or, fairer far than these, 
Mary, who treads the tops of both 

The heavens and the seas, 



THE QUEST ETERNAL. 91 



Descend no more my soul to tear 
When, waked from slumber's bliss, 

I taste terrestrial despair 
From thy remembered kiss ! 

Or veil thee, as the statue veiled, 

In Sais, stood of old; — 
The terrors of thy beauty, mailed. 

Shall leave my senses cold. 

Speak then to me the mystic word 
That spells thine awful name, 

And Earth unto her center stirred 
Shall shudder at its flame. 

Then shall the maddening fever die 
That haunts me and that hounds. 

The heart's fire and the head's and my 
Sore weight of human wounds. 

Or vain shall be thy grace to save. 
And curst my deathless soul, — 

This globe of glory but a cave, 
Sullen and bleak with dole. 

I know thou wilt not speak, I know 
Thy name rests unrevealed; — 

Over the broad, high world I go 
To seek the long-concealed. 



92 THE QUEST ETERNAL. 

Until Ahasuerus' road 
Eternal grows mine own; 

I take my staff, I take my load, 
I seek thee, Truth, alone! 



IN MEMORY OF DR. C. W. DOYLE. 93 



IN MEMORY OF DR. C. W. DOYLE. 

Peace, peace be thine, thou gentle soul, and rest; 

The night is fallen and thy journey don?. 
Long ran the bitter way — within this West 

Thy fervent heart sinks quenched like the sun. 

'T was meet Death claimed thee as a prize too fair 
To leave to Life so long — ^but, O, too soon 

Passed the stern, silent angel and left bare 
A garden in our breasts at central noon. 

Departed thou ! departed joy in thee ! 

Rifled again the heart's close chambers throb. 
Yet there shall glow to thy dear memory 

Shrines hallowed that no earthly grief can rob. 

Goodness thy greatness was — nor this alone 

For the white muses bent and kissed thy brow; 

They loved the tongue they taught — for all their own 
They claim thy labors, life and laurels now. 

Blest in the shining conclaves of the great. 
Full sure thy adoring spirit moves at last, — 

Humble thy living reverence for their state 
Was ever — nor that love lies in the past. 



94 IN MEMORY OF DR. C. W. DOYLE. 

Go seek the immortal masters, seek and find — 
Whose kingly company on Earth was still 

Thy solace and devotion, mind of mind 

Asks or is answered : What is human ill ? 

On thee no more Fate's wounding winds shall blow ; 

Thy burthen hast thou borne, nor didst rebel. 
Friend, gentle, loving friend and true — for O, 

Loving and true wast thou to all, — farewell ! 

Farewell ! wake here no more. Shall we accuse 
The releasing summons that for thee has come? 

Nay, nor shall grief pent-up in flesh refuse 
Love's tribute tear — a line — and sorrow dumb. 



MISANTHROPOS IN EXTREMIS. 95 



MISANTHROPOS IN EXTREMIS. 

In this huge antique chair I sit — 

Many a ghost hath haunted it; 

With my body coarsely drest 

In a sackcloth coat and vest. 

On this world-worn head I throw 

Cold ashes of the long ago, 

Upon the locks that women fair 

Oft kissed ! — no matter when nor where. 

This morn — it is the festal mom 
Of the blest day that I was bom. 
No more, no more let it be said 
That I no due observance paid. 
Deaden all my house's ears ; 
When the noisy noon-day nears — 
How I the garish day despise! — 
Fasten close my house's eyes. 
Good ! 't is night within the room ; 
The living may enjoy their tomb, 
For Earth is blackened with a bHght; 
A million wasteful suns cannot dispel the 
night. 



96 MISANTHROPOS IN EXTREMIS. 

Tapers two upon the table 
Light, and if thine arms be able, 
Lift me yon huge Bible — quick! 
Read me prayers for the dead and sick. 
Read low, I say — for Jesus' sake! 
Thy voice the envied dead would wake. 
Give here — for I, myself, the holy 
Verse of Job will now chant slowly. 
Birthdays come, with them revealing. 
Job, for thee, a brother-feeling. 
Blackest Birthdays! Why with mirth 
Does man celebrate his birth? 
Properly, O Job, we mourn 
That night the man-child was conceived 
And that day that He was born. 
Job! Job! intercede for me 
With the Lord — He loveth thee. 

Now the lights are quelled! I hear 
Gibbering, laughing demons near! 
Old Earth shakes within a storm. 
Rushing down comes an angel's form, 
Down from black skies rent in sunder! 
Now I sit with Night and wonder. 
Lost ! both worlds to me and gone ! — 
O God, too true, at last, at last. 
At last I am alone ! 



THE WORLD-SOUL. 97 



THE WORLD-SOUL. 

(From the German of Goethe.) 

Disperse ye through all regions far and lonely 

Of these celestial rounds ; 
Enraptured rush through dimmest zones where only 

Is space, and know its bounds. 

Now, floating in the distances unmeasured, 

Ye dream the god-head's dream. 
And shine, the fellows of each fair star treasured 

In yon vast, light-sown Scheme. 

Rush on, rush on, O comets scarce commanded, 

Deep through the endless Deep. 
This labyrinth, with suns and planets banded. 

Go pierce and know no sleep. 

Ye clasp and mould the Earths that it was bidden 

For Progress to create. 
So that they live and give to births still hidden 

Their paths commensurate. 

And circling through the living, pregnant spaces 

Your wandering veil ye lead. 
And the set form of stones in deepest places 

Is by your might decreed. 



THE WORLD-SOUL. 



Thus everything itself fain overpasses — 

Where heavenly impulse strives ; 
The barren water mantles with green masses ; 

The atom still survives. 

Thus all destroys through love which lifts and rises, 

That night whence vapors well; 
Then glow the splendid fields where Paradise is 

Ever ineffable. 

Thence soars aloft, a sacred light beholding, 

A pinioned legion fair. 
And ye are mute before that vast unfolding — 

As once the primal pair. 

Yet soon is lost your limitless resistance, 

When the heavenly glances fall — 
Receive ye thus, with thanks, a blest existence 

From the All back to the All. 



THE DANCE OF THE DEAD. 99 



THE DANCE OF THE DEAD. 

(Translated from the German of Goethe.) 

The sexton peers down at the dead of the night 
On the many round graves all a-row. 

Lo, the moon hath thrown everything into the light 
And the burial-ground is a-glow ! 

There a grave 'gins to rock, and another one here ; 

Here the women step forth, there the men re-appear 
In the whitest and longest of garments. 

Now all start to squirm with a terrible itch 
And the bones join in merry-go-round, 

The poor and the young and the old and the rich, 
Though their shrouds hinder many a bound. 

Since Modesty here is no longer of use. 

They rattle themselves and the linen flies loose 
And is scattered o'er many a hillock. 

The femurs are lifted, the feet caper spry 

And the movements are made with a dash. 

There 's a rattle and clatter arising on high, 
As if sticks had been struck with a crash. 

All this the poor sexton has stricken with fear. 

And the devil, the clown, whispers into his ear: 
"Go, steal away one of the cerements." 

LofC. 



THE DANCE OF THE DEAD. 



It was said ! It was done ! and he hurries his flight 

Behind the thrice-sanctified door; 
The moon whitens still with mysterious Hght 

All the hideous dance as before. 
At last, one by one, they slip softly away, 
Enwrapped in their shrouds, and are under the clay 

And under the grass in a moment. 

Yet one, the last one, trips and stumbles around, 
And snatches and claws at the graves. 

But never a fellow his shroud-cloth has found ; — 
For he scents it aloft where it waves. 

He rattles the church-door ; it hurles him a-back, 

'T is guarded and blest — or else, sexton alack ! — 
It glints with its bright metal crosses. 

Yet the shroud must he have, and the time is so 
short ! 

He must have it or nevermore rest. 
So the knave grasps a carved Gothic cap for support 

And clambers from cresting to crest. 
Alas ! for thee, sexton ! what hope of escape ? 
From crocket to crocket the horrible shape 

Climbs on like a long-legged spider. 

The sexton is pale and stands mute and aghast 
And would gladly give back what he took ! 



THE DANCE OF THE DEAD. 



Lo, the cloth catches now — he has breathed his 
last !— 

By its end on an old iron hook! 
Then the moon 'gins to fade and her lustre is done ; 
Below as the terrible bell thunders : "One ! " 

The skeleton shatters to pieces ! 



102 SONG FROM "FAUST; 



SONG FROM "FAUST." 
(Translated from the German.) 

There was a King of Thule, 

To whom, when near her grave, 

The maid he loved so truly 
A golden beaker gave. 

This did he ever treasure ; 

When he at board would sit, 
His tears would fill its measure 

When e'er he drank from it. 

When Life his frame was leaving, 

His all he rendered up 
To heirs and knew no grieving, 

Yet kept his golden cup. 

Then groaned the royal tables, — 
Begirt by knights was he, 

High in those halls that fables 
Still tell of by the sea. 



SONG FROM " FAUST." 103 

There stood the old king, weaker 

And drank his life's last wine, 
Then tossed the sacred beaker 

Far down into the brine. 

He watched it fall, and filling, 

It sank into the main ; 
His eyes with death were thrilling; 

His lips ne'er drank again. 



104 GENIUS, LOVE AND HATE. 



GENIUS, LOVE AND HATE. 

" Great Wit is sure to Madness near allied. 
And thin partitions do their bounds divide," — 
But, O, how thin a wall doth separate 
The realms of endless Love and endless Hate ! 



THE HARPER'S SONG. 105 



THE HARPER'S SONG. 

(Translated from Goethe.) 

Who ne'er with tears did eat his bread, 
Who ne'er through sorrowful night hours, 

Sat weeping on his lonely bed, 

He knows ye not, ye heavenly powers ! 

Ye lead us into Life amain, 

Ye leave the poor soul guilt to borrow. 
And then ye give it o'er to pain ; 

For guilt to-day finds pain to-morrow. 



io6 THE SECOND THOUGHT. 



THE SECOND THOUGHT. 

" I die to-night/' I wrote you, 

To make the sum complete. 
In a fortnight how you started 

To see me in the street ! 

Yet, pistols make a cruel mess. 

And daggers I despise, 
And I am poison-proof, for I 

Drank poison from your eyes. 

So am I forced this life to live. 

Nor for its end make moan, 
For, since you cannot see my death, 

I yet may see your own, 

'T wixt Life, and Death for you, methinks. 

Life is the lesser evil ; 
The being dead were very well, 

But the dying is the devil. 



REVELATION. 107 



REVELATION. 

(The Man with the Hoe.) 

The bard stood prophesying 
From out the social night. 

Both hemispheres were lying 
Projected in his sight. 

Mankind lay sick, lay dying 
For Brother-love, for Right. 

Came this rapt word-magician, 
His rhythmic rites began ; 

The fevered world's physician 
For all the ills of man ; 

His poems one petition 
Dim, wild, Utopian: 

" The lamb would with the lion 
Soon share a mutual rest. 

And man would live and die on 
His brother mortal's breast, 

Millennium and Zion 

Would be unto the blest. 



io8 REVELATION. 



" The sun would soon be shining 
Abroad the promised mom " 

My heart of hearts, divining, 
With sudden doubt was torn ; 

A weeping, waihng, whining 
Across the world was borne. 

A strange faint sound in wonder 

From earth to ether rose ; 
It cleft the air insunder! 

That sharpening of the hoes ! 
Yea, stones on stones with thunder 

Shook the empurpled foes. 

Black loomed the hills supernal, 
While rosy grew the sky — 

" Behold, Love's dawn eternal ! " 
The prophet made outcry. 

The heavens flamed infernal, 
The red clouds burned on high. 

A silence iron-handed 

Held Earth's cowed millions dumb. 
Up clomb an orb commanded 

By Hell — whence it had come. 
A skull ! With one word branded 

Its brow—" MILLENNIUM." 



BELLOMANIACS. 109 



BELLOMANIACS. 

War ! War ! the foam-flecked mongrels of the press 

Yell at the waving of a foreign plume. 
They know, the dogs, with glory they may dress 

Their lazar shapes upon their country's doom — 
For War, though won, is doom ! O, see where caught. 

The gore-splashed, lying journal-jackal thrives! — 
Feeding the rolling presses' Juggernaut 

Widows' and mothers' hearts and brave men's lives. 



RUDYARD KIPLING. 



RUDYARD KIPLING. 

False to the poet's purpose high, in vain 
Craves he admittance to their golden fane, — 
Juggler and jongleur, whose vulgarian muse 
Roars from her narrow heart her rank abuse ! 
Who never Beauty knew and never Wit, 
Who beats the drums for Truth — while beating it. 
Renown shall with a sponge erase his name 
Where on her walls he chalked it — to their shame. 

1903. 



THE SNOB. HI 



THE SNOB. 

Our land 's foul slander, you ! whose helot eyes 
Worship the shallow shows we most despise, 
Things that true Yankee-men were born to hate, 
But most your simian lust for English state ; 
Thing of a breed unknown, but less than man, 
You dare to call yourself American ! 
Whether your now degenerate stock was sown, 
Far from its parent shore, on Plymouth's own, 
Or from some needy wanderer's sturdy blood. 
Stagnated to its present state of mud. 
Or shipped in convict cargoes o'er the sea. 
To till Virginia's fields, — 't is one to me, — 
Your beggar's or your felon's blood dare claim 
Alas, our country's earth and all its name! 
At later alien bands you sneer and flout, 
And, being in yourself, cry : Keep them out ! 
You, who a free American professed, 
Blazon on vulgar walls a senseless crest, 
Bought of escutcheon-mongers with your gold, — 
(To deck such asses' ears such things are sold) ; 
Gold, which the Fates and a rich father gave, — 
The first to turn the second in his grave, — 
Gold, that has made your worthless life more light. 



THE SNOB. 



Curse of the Commonwealth, leech, parasite ! 
Whose back none other labor knows than that 
Of rubbing smooth the chairs whereon you sat. 
The leopard shall not lose his spots — his load 
Of hump the camel — nor his warts the toad, — 
Nor grows the snob and flunky unexempt 
From physic marks of feature, — and contempt 
Of honorable men. The smirked grimace, 
The high falsetto titter and the face 
With in-drawn lip, the up-screwed eyes and nose, 
The parrot stock of speech, — the strut, the pose, — 
Such are the signs that Nature sets to mock 
The rank decadence of her basest stock. 
So, done at last ! the scornful muse refrains 
Further to flay the nude thing that remains, 
Washes her hands defiled in water clear, 
And wipes her sandal-soles upon your rear. 
Away ! since even snobs must have their due. 
She plants a kick upon your greater you. 



TO A SHAMELESS BARD. 113 



TO A SHAMELESS BARD. 

You have debased the poet's sacred art, 

And sown with lying hate your darkest shame ; 

Your name shall be a jeer-word in the mart 
Where you for dole of dollars sold your fame ! 



114 MADE IN AMERICA. 



MADE IN AMERICA. 

Come, let us make a dozen score of heroes ; 
Each yearning niche of Fame yells out aloud, — 
Our pedestals unstatued — are we zeros 
To stand behind that European crowd ? 
We, who have gold to buy the beggars wholly, 
Shall we not have our heroes and great men? 
We, who monopolize all good things solely, 
Shall yield the palm to others ? Never ! Then 
Come, let us have our heroes, have them quickly ; 
Make them of paper, sawdust, tin or rag; — 
Here, all you slavering journals, coat them thickly 
With smart veneer of Hail Columbia brag! 
Heroes civilian, heroes military 
That shall out-tale the Vallambrosan leaves. 
Heroes of sans-culottcs like Tom and Jerry, 
Heroes of politicians, chap-men, thieves. 
Heroes of mighty mouths like boaster Dewey, 
Who, with enormous waste of powder sunk 
Defenseless Spanish hulks — how loudly blew he 
His braggart note o'er every foundered junk! 
Nor must our haughty-stepping dames be slighted, — 
Let us have female heroes, so the breed 
Of our heroic hearts be expedited. 
Rearing a race of Jasons from our seed. 



MADE IN AMERICA. 115 

They say we have few great men — scarcely any, 

Who are the greatest people and the best; — 

We have not many great, but a great many 

Poets and statesmen, soldiers and the rest. 

They say we have no heroes, — let us make some! 

They say we have no great men, — let us " fake " some ! 



ii6 "IL DECHIRE LES PAPERASSES. 



IL DECHIRE LES PAPERASSES." 

Pape'rasses, happy word ! 
Though in English never heard, 
Word that from thy parent French, 
I into our tongue would wrench. 
Aptest word ! thoii shouldst describe 
Blockheads of a certain tribe, 
And with but the prefix " news," 
Scourge and brand a foul abuse. 
Though the Gauls may need thee too, — 
Here 's Herculean work to do ! 
Hark ! what squalling notes of fear 
Strike on the expectant ear! — 
Paperasses! do not blench, 
For the word is safely French. 



LINES ON A DEAD DOG. 117 



LINES ON A DEAD DOG. 

(Lying on the City Hall Steps, Anno 1894.) 

Poor Cerberus ! thy death befell 

Here 'gainst the sullen gates of Hell. 

None pities thee nor heaves a sigh ; 

Each holds his nose and hurries by. 

Rulers and rogues politely greet, 

Yet scorn the brother at their feet. 

O, would that thou wert hung where oft 

The spangled banner flaps aloft; 

High in the eagle's thrilling home, 

Above the Hall, above the Dome ! 

A happy symbol, thou, to show 

The nature of the things below, — 

Thy body, bursting from its sheath, — 

The body politic beneath. 

Whose rank corruption like thine own, 

Through all its length and breadth is sown 

Both feed their swarms of worthless flies 

And both are stinking to the skies. 



ii8 ELECTION TIME. 



ELECTION TIME. 

Now hand to hand and face to face, 

The parties strive to win ; 
These to turn rascals out of place, 

And these to turn them in. 
Those who entered lean as kine 
Issue now as fat as swine ; 
Whom we put aperch as chicks, 
As glutted vultures quit the sticks. 
But through the streets all yell — for yell they must ; 
"A public office is a public trust ! " 



MANIKIN AND MAIDKIN. 119 



MANIKIN AND MAIDKIN. 

A manikin met a maidkin fair; — 

She lured him with her eyes. 
The manikin followed here and there — 

O manikin be wise! 

Beware, thou manikin, of sin ; — 

Those eyes are gins and pits, 
The devil lurks and waits within : — 

Beware thy fragile wits ! 

" O maidkin fair, I love thee well," 

The manikin did say, 
" I love thee more than tongue can tell ! " 

The maidkin laughed away. 

She led him here, she led him there, 

She led him by the nose, 
And, haltered with a single hair, 

He follows where she goes. 

Came by another manikin, 

The maidkin was undone. 
She spread her nets his heart to win 

And let the first one run. 



120 MANIKIN AND MAIDKIN. 

And he with sulphur, nitre, lead 

Blew all his skull to bits ! 
'T was lead to lead — within that head 

Was room — but none for wits. 

Manikin, manikin, manikin small, 

O, sad thy history ! 
'T was ever thus with one and all, 
With old and young and great and small, 

Was, is, and still shall be! 



ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF " PUNCH." 121 



ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF " PUNCH." 

Weep, ye whose tears must unavailing flow, 
Struck with the ruthless fate of all below, 
A fate so common, unannounced and sure 
Which all who breathe or bark at last endure. 
Weep, and unpen the channels of your eyes 
O' er yon beloved shape that lowly lies, 
O'er him that unavailing love hath lost. 
Love kneeling by those paws so gently crossed. 

Ye mighty hills and forests filled with sound, 
Ye ocean-combing floods with whiteness crowned. 
Swift dryads glistening through the redwood trees, 
And fauns and feathered things that sail the breeze. 
Weep, like yon tristful one whose woe-worn head 
Now pillows on a cold and widowed bed. 
Weep ! O, what freshet tears your eyes must pour. 
For Punch, poor, ancient Punch, is now no more ! 
Gone ! gone ! — for that too peerless canine weep. 
Gone to profoundest, everlasting sleep ! 
Too soon, ah, far too soon Atropos sheared 
His thinning thread of Life — and Death appeared, 
Nor could that feeble bark affright the grim. 
Implacable, dread shape that conquered him. 



122 ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF "PUNCH." 

Yet, like a being of celestial birth, 
He first endured his martyrdom on Earth, 
Until his mistress' hand, when all was vain, 
Gave him swift coup de grace to end his pain. 
Then sped his spirit to the thrones of light 
But left within her heart eternal night. 

Alas, each swelling sob my utterance chokes. 
How the sad drench of tears my own provokes ! 
Hence, vengeful furies with red eyes of coal, 
Never of this dear dog be yours the soul ! 
Though Pluto thunder from his realm profound — 
Or furious Ate make the world resound — 
Or grim and mighty Rhadamanthus throw 
His trident on Hell's fuming floor below — 
Or foaming Cerberus with horrent hair, 
Dread brother ! sally barking from his lair — 
Or Charon, venerable and gloomy man. 
Wait for that well-beloved black-and-tan 
Whose spirit, curled beside the Olympian throne, 
Hath found a milder world than this our own. 

O, ne'er again across Bohemia's floor 
Shall Punch obey the finger of our Thor, 
Never again the outstretched hand shall bite 
Wherewith the Laureate this dirge must write — 
Whiles widowed Judy whimpers in the grove, 
Robbed of the chaste delights of canine love. 



ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF " PUNCH." 123 

But, long as stars and planets gem the sky, 
Long as yon flaming orb is rolled on high, 
Long as endures the Earth within her frame 
Shall live, shall flourish Punch's glorious name, 
Safe from the tooth of Time, his bright, perennial fame. 



124 ST. PATRICK'S DAY, 1900. 



ST. PATRICK'S DAY, 1900. 

If I were the good Saint Patrick, 
And not a poor devil in sin, 

This were the day — this were the way 
My labors would begin. 

For I would look across the land 

From sea to a sister sea, 
And then would grasp in either hand 
A pen that flamed like Michael's brand, 

Far, fierce and terribly. 

One foot would rest within the West ; 

The other in the East. 
I 'd cry to God : " Thou knowest best, 
Call kites and vultures — Thy behest 

Mine office — theirs the feast." 

Then might ye cry to see the map 

Of our country turn a-green 
With serpents wriggling from her lap, 
Pell-mell beneath the thunder-clap. 
Beneath the lightning-sheen. 



ST. PATRICK'S DAY, 1900. 125 

Out from the halls of the Capitol steep — 

Defiled with shame and slime, 
The reptile race I 'd drive — I 'd sweep 
The place of all the things that creep, 

For once and for all time. 

Out from the offices, out from the press. 

Out from many a steeple. 
Out from the courts and the schools ; no less 
Millions of snakes from the vast excess 

Alive in the hearts of the people ! 

Out from the cities, serpent-stuffed. 

Out from their teeming fens, 
Rattlers and vipers and adders puffed. 
Hypocrites blue with the skins they sloughed, 

By thousands and by tens. 

Each road should form a giant snake 

Of snakes — a frenzied flood ! 
To every sea, to every lake 
A-hiss the maddened mob would take 

Its poisoned path of mud. 

No wriggler would be left alive 

Once more its race to start ; 
Nay, not a serpent should survive 
Save beautiful little snakes that thrive 

In the Eden of woman's heart. 



126 ST. PATRICK'S DAY, 1900. 

Then would I stand athwart the land, 

Bowed o'er my iron pen ; 
Turned to stone where I took my stand 
Yet with open eye and ready hand, 

Lest those serpents breed again. 

So, if I were the good Saint Patrick, 
And not a poor devil in sin, 

This were the day — this were the way 
My labors would begin ! 



LATRONA STREET. 127 



LATRONA STREET. 

Where holes and dens in countless numbers lie, 
And dismal nooks and corners pain the eye, 
Where scarce is room to move my cautious feet, 
Surely, I walk along Latrona street ! 
Each wind that through the impested region blows, 
Conveys infection to my helpless nose. 
Fried fish and steaks their fragrances combine. 
While laundered flannels steaming on the line, 
And stables miUtant the reek refine. 
The sluttish housewives with disordered hair, 
Exploit the passing stranger with a stare. 
Or else in groups about the steps are strung. 
And scandal's venom drips from every tongue. 
The walks, like styes, with slops are littered round. 
With easy search a dog deceased is found. 
There scraps of meat refresh a thousand flies. 
And here its trade a rotten herring plies. 
Half-naked brats roll screaming in the dirt. 
And twenty mothers fly when one brat 's hurt. 
The hoodlum swain, in trousers tight arrayed, 
Woos with a speech unclean the hoodlum maid. 
Ten ragged, freckled wenches — squalid crowd ! — 
Are singing South Side ditties shrill and loud; 



128 LATRONA STREET. 

And where Disease asserts her household reign, 
A yellow face is pressed against each pane. 
Through broken doors 't is shown beyond a doubt, 
The inside is as filthy as the out. 
I turn me now, with solemn step and slow, 
And from this scene of dreadful squalor go. 
Farewell, foul street, and all that reeks of thee — 
Thy crimes, thy sorrows and thy poverty! 

1893. 



POEMS IN THE 
SPIRIT OF POE 



POE. 131 



POE. 

Unto the swing and silence of great stars, 

Deep-chambered in the realms mysterious 

Of the dusk fays that dream, thy breath was born, — 

Thou, who with calm brow and marmoreal pale, 

Musest, forever throned supreme ! Supreme, — 

'Midst the all-kingliest stars, a rushing orb. 

Eternal, vast, undimmed, out-traversing Heaven 

With fiercer lustre-splendor and with song 

Far wilder whirling than thy brother suns 

That gem Fame's zodiac — who counts not thee? 

Songs that the wide-winged seraphs spake from out 

Thy lips, — to marble have they grown, as wan, 

As whitely-pale as pearl, as rich, as rare, 

Those hewn, melodious, immortalities — 

So few, hoarded, yet few ! Thy sojourn dark 

On Earth was martyrdom that held no ray 

In the dim, desolate air of her low plains, 

Sunless for thee, save where thy spirit burst 

The nether night unlifted and thy brow 

Gave again to the o'er-taught world the great 

Reflex of Beauty's face. Thee Loveliness 

Loved ; gave thee her blossoms and blown flowers 

Which decked thy altars fair, as his were decked 



132 POE. 

In Delphos' oracle old, Phoebus, prophetic priest 
Of Beauty, as wast thou, whom shall no death 
E'er darken or invade. No more enchain 
Thy music's spells these regions reft of thee, 
Who, through abysmal, undivulging nought, 
Speakest from shadowy shores with all the great, 
One hollow word's sad rolling, " Nevermore." 
Nevermore ! to the infant muse that stirred 
My youngest veins attuned, more dead of hope 
That sound than terrible Death ! I gave it not 
Surrender, but many a night laborious 
After laborious day, all humbly through 
Thy towering and thy star-wrought golden fanes 
Of frozen or of fiery dreams searched ever 
For what had made thy thought a light of lights, 
For what was secret of thy music vast 
And weird, for what was root of all thy lore. 
Search that could scarce succeed, in vain ! in vain ! — 
Ever the echoes whisper : " Nevermore " 
Through past, through present and through future 
years ! 

Here have I bound a lowly chaplet up 
Of flowers few and slightest, grown from soil 
Once nourishing noblest trees — for me to lay 
Even this on thy thrice-hallowed tomb, enough 
Of honor, and my labor's meed too large. 



THE SEA OF SERENITY. 133 



THE SEA OF SERENITY. 
I. 
From the Mountains of the Moon, 

O'er her silent, silver valleys, 
Lit by Earth-light soft in June, 

And Aurora Borealis, 
I and Isabel the saintly, 

Mute upon the mountain's top, 
Listened to the sweet dews faintly 

Into nether caverns drop. 

II. 

And we spoke not and we moved not 

In our musing melancholy; 
Deep we loved, but, ah ! we loved not 

As they love in worlds unholy. 
There the Earth hung full and golden 

O'er our planet's pallid plain. 
And all memories of the olden 

Days of Earth swam back again. 

III. 
With a soft, a sad insistence. 
Flowed a stream of melody 



134 THE SEA OF SERENITY. 

Through the ether, through the distance, 
Flowed for Isabel and me. 

Through the zenith whirled the white, 
Green and purple, opalescent. 

Blue and crimson suns whose light 
Bathed the nadir, iridescent. 

IV. 

Many million triple suns, 

Violet and lilac, burning 
Where the crystal zodiac runs. 

On its golden axis turning. 
Brighter than the flames of Endor 

Glowed the ruby sphere terrestrial, 
With a nimbus crowned of splendor 

All seraphic and celestial, 

V. 

O'er her scintillating face 

Rushed a mad and radiant river ; 
O'er the poles it poured its race 

Where tormented torches quiver. 
Oh ! their spiral tongues unending 

Like the mines of Ophir burned. 
To a liquid lustre blending 

As their jeweled globe was turned. 



THE SEA OF SERENITY. 135 



VI. 

Then I glanced at her beside me 

With the glory in her eye, 
Deep I sighed, for words denied me— 

Deep we sighed, yet knew not why. 
Spoke the Sibyl of the Utter 

Silence, with her waving wings. 
With her shadow wings that flutter 

Over all Unfathomed Things : 

VII. 

" Yonder star whose lustre lonely, 

Tinted like the Triton's horn, 
Seems a sun — its flames are only 

Flames of human passions born. 
Love and Life— the Thoughts that ever 

Burn within the mortal breast, 
Flames which shall not die, oh, never 

Shall they die and never rest ! 

VIII. 

" Till yon globe shall bum to ashes — 

Like this icy orb decrease 
Cold and dark — with love she flashes — 

Love till all that is shall cease." 



136 THE SEA OF SERENITY. 

Thus the Sibyl — swift our planet 
Rushed into a vast eclipse, 

And a shadow overran it, 

And the Night lay on our lips. 

But our lips re-echoed slowly, 
In that Universal Peace, 

Lowly, slowly, softly, holy — 

" Love till all that is shall cease." 

1893- 



INTROSPECTION. 137 



INTROSPECTION. 

In the palpable dead night, 
In the still, the stellar light, 
When the hours, like pilgrims slow, creep into the 

Long Ago— 
From the Valley of the Shadow, many a vision black 
or white 

Comes to haunt me, 
Comes to daunt me. 
Garbed in shapes I knew or know. 

Would they sought a season fitter — O, the dreary, 
dreary, bitter 
Years and tears, tears and years. 
Years of burning, bitter tears 
That have bowed down Earth with woe, that with woe 
have bowed her low ! 

And our misery and pain 
Is to think that ne'er again 
Shall the heart of Earth cease grieving, leaving all 
that grieves it so. 



138 INTROSPECTION. 

When the symphony of spheres — 
(He shall bless them — he who hears) 
Organ-like of cosmic woes, sing — I listen unto those 
Strains at midnight that enrapture each exalted soul 
that hears 
Unregretting, 
Earth forgetting, 
Though like sister stars she glows ; 

Though she glows with wildest, parti-colored 
flames like fair Astarte, 
With the brilliant passion-fire 
Of a burning world's desire, 
With the lambent flame that blows blazing fiercely 
from the throes 

Of brave hearts in passion tost. 
Of the weak, the helpless lost 
In the world's rash race contending, ending when to 
wreck it goes. 



INTROSPECTION. 139 



Under the translucent horn 
Of the mirrored moon I mourn 
In the deep night, till the day, takes her gentle ray 

away, 
On the Past so dimly distant. And the future's Stygian 
bourn 

Now appals me, 
Now enthralls me 
With its terrors vast and gray. 

For in sadness still and sorrow, comes repeatedly 
to-morrow 
With thoughts that cannot die, 
With sighs that ask us : Why ? 
O'er lost joys of yesterday — ah, how fair, how blest 
were they ! 

And within these eyes of mine 
They shall flow and they shall shine 
With a glory all undying, flying as it seems to-day. 

1893. 



140 THE ISLE OF THE DEAD. 



THE ISLE OF THE DEAD. 

In the desert floods horrific, 
Where no star shines beatific, 
Lies an island that uprises gray from out the murmur- 
ing tides. 
There it Hes, close by that region where the weary, 

weary Ocean, 
Like some cataract that floweth o'er some precipice's 

sides, 
Flows forever and forever down the hoar Antarctic 

pole, 
To Earth's heart by moaning, dead winds led along 

in swiftest motion. 
Flowing, falling as dark fancies fall and flow o'er thee, 
my soul. 

There the sun lies dead forever, 
Wrapt in clouds no sun could sever, 
Never part the bleak, funereal, o'erhanging vapor 

palls. 
And the Spirit of All-Silence, breathing deep beneath 

the waters. 
Lifts and sinks the sable surges as they lap the granite 
walls. 



THE ISLE OF THE DEAD. 141 

There dwell phantoms vast whose faces watch in dun- 
gray mists the while, 
And two guardian ghosts — two sisters, Peace and 

Death — the only daughters 
Of that Universal Silence brooding o'er that haunted 
Isle. 

And that island forms a crescent, 
Stilly cove where the incessant, 
Shifting surges lie in melancholy contemplation still, 
'Neath the spell and scent of cypress sentinels and 

mandragora, 
Its smooth face reflecting whitely marble walls built 

in the hill, 
Ancient walls of milky marble, mossy tombs hewn in 

the stone. 
From the cliffs Lethean lilies breathe a dull, lethargic 

aura, — 
Ah, these eyes wept as those lilies weep — these eyes 

wept not alone! 

Like the heart-beat of my saintly 
Loved one, now an oar beats faintly. 
'T is a black-draped barge comes gliding, sliding o'er 

the unsailed sea, 
With a muffled, masked rower and the form of Grief, 

who, weeping, 
Standeth o'er a velvet casket as she prayeth ceaselessly. 



142 THE ISLE OF THE DEAD. 

Tell, what prayers need there be said, woman, o'er 

that blessed head? 
Slowly, slowly she comes creeping to the tomb where 

I was sleeping 
Seven centuries and cycles in the Island of the Dead. 

1894. 



PACIFIC. 143 



PACIFIC. 

Often we walked by the water 

Of that weird, wonderful sea, 
I and the skipper's fair daughter — 

Fair as a flower was she ! 

Doubting how sorrow could be, 
I and the skipper's pale daughter 

Strolled to the sound of the sea. 

Clouds in the heavens seemed mountains, 
And mountains smiled over the land; 

By Ocean of many-mouthed fountains 

We loved and we dreamed and we planned 
All the life we could not understand — 

And the vari-hued mountains and fountains 
Were ours in that magical land. 



144 PACIFIC. 

O, child of the skipper ! if only 

The mountains and fountains no more 
Drew me back where that ocean so lonely 

Still mourns on its desolate shore ! 

But my heart bears the sorrow it bor3 
When we laid thee, beloved, all lonely 

Where thou hearest the sea-voice no more. 

1895. 



AUG 11 iyuc5 



